The medical staff at Fairview Southdale Hospital is serious about the phrase, “Children are our future.” Each year the hospital honors 16 students from eight area schools, including Edina High School, with its Fairview Southdale Medical Staff Scholarship. “We’ve been doing this for about 30 years,” says vice president of medical affairs Richard Karulf. “Many of us were helped early in our careers, and we want to pay it forward.”

Students who act as team managers for high school sports take on a lot of responsibility. They provide crucial support to coaches as well as players. They keep up with equipment, assist coaches in communication and scheduling, and generally help to be sure all the off-the-field logistics run as smoothly as possible. Jennifer Dixson Hoff and her husband Michael think that those students deserve recognition. So when they began working with the Lerner and Hunt families to create a scholarship fund at Edina High School, they decided to dedicate it to student athletic team managers.